What Did the Makers of the Judicature Acts Understand by 'Fusion'? LSE Research Online URL for This Paper: Version: Accepted Version
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What did the makers of the Judicature Acts understand by 'fusion'? LSE Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/101795/ Version: Accepted Version Book Section: Lobban, Michael (2019) What did the makers of the Judicature Acts understand by 'fusion'? In: Goldberg, John C.P., Smith, Henry E. and Turner, P.G., (eds.) Equity and Law: Fusion and Fission. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 70 - 95. ISBN 9781108421317 Reuse Items deposited in LSE Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the LSE Research Online record for the item. [email protected] https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/ What did the makers of the Judicature Acts understand by ‘fusion’? MICHAEL LOBBAN By the middle of 1851, the ‘fusion of law and equity’ had become ‘the slang of the day’.1 In part inspired by the recent reforms in New York piloted by David Dudley Field, the reformist Law Amendment Society resolved in May that all justice could be administered in one tribunal under one procedural code and that, in cases of conflict, rules of equity should prevail over rules of law.2 Nearly a quarter of a century later the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873 (U.K.) passed,3 which paved the way for the creation of a single High Court unifying the existing superior courts in one body, which would operate according to a single set of Rules and in which equity was to prevail. The Chancery and common law courts were now fused into one; but whether this constituted a fusion of law and equity has remained a contested issue ever since. In what follows, we will explore what reformers understood by ‘fusion’ in this era of reform, in order to understand what they thought the Judicature Act was meant to achieve. In some respects, the fusion of the judicatures was a natural outcome of half a century’s agitation by reformist lawyers, often crossing party lines, to modernise England’s archaic judicial system.4 At the same time, by the 1870s the common law and Chancery bars had become quite distinct, with practitioners having a strong sense of the distinct nature of their courts. Although in the eighteenth century practitioners could find work on both sides of Westminster Hall, by the early nineteenth century the bar had become increasingly specialised.5 The abolition of the equity jurisdiction of the Court of Exchequer in 1841 further reduced the opportunities for practice across jurisdictions, and by the middle of the century equity leaders were confining their practice to one of the Chancery courts. While common law men prided themselves on their forensic skills of testing truth through cross examination, the Chancery bar took the view 1 Anon., ‘The Lord Chancellor, The Law Reformers, and The Profession’ (1851) 42 Leg. Ob. 229, 230. 2 ‘Society for Promoting the Amendment of the Law’ (1851) 17 L.T. 119, 119. 3 36 & 37 Vict. c. 66. 4 For a view of law reform in the mid nineteenth century, see M. Lobban, ‘Henry Brougham and Law Reform’ (2000) 115 E.H.R. 1184. 5 O.H.L.E., vol. XI, 1050–1. that its paper proceedings were generally more complex.6 The common law court was an unfamiliar environment for many Chancery men, akin to stepping into a different world. Being about to appear in a copyright case in the Common Pleas, in November 1860 one member of the Chancery bar even felt it necessary to write formally to the Chief Justice, Sir William Erle, to ask whether there was any objection to his ‘wearing a moustache which he is desirous of continuing during the winter months’.7 As shall be seen, during the debates over fusion both Chancery lawyers and common law men worried about whether the reform might undermine distinctive, valuable features of their system. However, the divergent views over reform did not merely reflect the rival views of different practitioners. Law reformers themselves had different views of the nature of the problem to be solved. Some took the view that the distinction between law and equity was simply a product of a historical development during which the procedure of the common law courts had become ossified, and needed to be supplemented by a more modern and rational court. According to this view, both equity and common law courts applied systems of positive rules though equity’s were more appropriate to modern needs. Once the common law’s artificial forms and procedures were done away with, the argument went, a harmonious system would ensue naturally.8 Others took the view that law and equity were distinct in their very nature. Not only did they deal with different kinds of rights – seen particularly in the distinction between legal and equitable property – but the very mentality of equity was distinct. Whereas the common law refined all its issues for determination by a jury, equity probed and directed the conscience of multiple parties in a way which could not be done by a jury, but needed the discretionary powers of a judge, exercised in accordance with the maxims of equity. For such reformers, there were limits to how far their procedures could be fused, since the matters dealt 6 As Sir Edward Sugden’s comments in Report of the Select Committee on Official Salaries, H.C.P.P. 1850 (611), XV. 179, 218, q. 2144. 7 Letter from Coryton to Sir William Erle (13 November 1860), Bodleian Library, MS Don. c. 71, 91. 8 See, for example, [T.H. Farrer], ‘The Severance of Law and Equity’ (1848) 8 L. Rev. & Q.J. Brit. & Foreign Juris. 62, which reviews C.F. Trower, The Anomalous Condition of English Jurisprudence, 1st edn (London: Hatchard and Son, 1848). See also the report of the Law Amendment Society’s Special Committee on Law and Equity Procedure: Anon., ‘Progress of Union of Law and Equity’ (1851) 14 L. Rev. & Q.J. Brit. & Foreign Juris. 143, 152–66. See also R. Bethell, ‘Inaugural Address’, in Papers Read before the Juridical Society 1855–58 (London: Stevens, Stevens and Norton, 1858), 1–6 and his response to David Dudley Field in Anon., ‘Proceedings of Law Societies: Society for Promoting the Amendment of the Law’ (1851) 16 L.T. 352, 353 and his observations reported in Anon., ‘Proceedings of Law Societies: Juridical Society’ (1858) 32 L.T. 140. with by Chancery judges would need the kind of machinery which had developed in their courts. A third view was held by those who felt that law and equity could be fused into one system, but that it would not occur naturally. Since the rules of law and equity were distinct and often in conflict, any complete fusion would require a codification of the relevant rules. Early Debates over Fusion In the first half of the nineteenth century, calls for fusion were rare. Although Jeremy Bentham proposed a new code which would see no distinction between law and equity, his pannomion project was not taken up by reformers.9 It was not until the late 1840s that works such as Charles Francis Trower’s Anomalous Condition of English Jurisprudence helped put fusion back onto the agenda. Trower called for ‘a fusion of the principles on which Legislation is to proceed’; and argued that since equity was based on a set of principles more suited to modern society, the legal ones should be merged into the equitable.10 He also spent much time exposing the inefficiency and expense of sending parties to different courts and arguing for a simple uniform mode of procedure. This was a topic which was to take up most of the attention of reformers in the early 1850s.11 The call for fusion continued to be made by reformers attached to the Law Amendment Society throughout this decade. In his first speech as Solicitor General, in February 1853, Richard Bethell told the Commons that in spite of the ‘large portion’ of Chancery reform effected in the previous year much remained to be done, and declared that he would himself ‘never be content’ without ‘the consolidation of jurisdiction, and the administration of equity and common law from the same bench’.12 Five years later, he argued that it should not be implemented gradually, but immediately and completely.13 His fellow reformers also looked forward to greater fusion. ‘The fusion of law and equity was certain to 9 One of his admirers, A.J. Johnes, did propose a union of the two jurisdictions in Suggestions for a Reform of the Court of Chancery, by a Union of the Jurisdictions of Equity and Law with a Plan of a New Tribunal for Cases of Lunacy (London: Saunders and Benning, 1834). Johnes later wrote a letter: ‘On the Union of Law and Equity in relation to the County Courts’ (1852) 15 L. Rev. & Q.J. Brit. & Foreign Juris. 313. 10 Trower, The Anomalous Condition of English Jurisprudence, 73. This work may have been the first to use the word ‘fusion’ in England in relation to this topic. See also C.F. Trower, ‘On the Union of Law and Equity’ (1851) 15 L. Rev. & Q.J. Brit. & Foreign Juris. 107, 119. 11 See Special Committee on Law and Equity Procedure, ‘Second Report’ (1851) 14 L. Rev. & Q.J. Brit. & Foreign Juris. 231; Anon., ‘Fusion of Law and Equity’ (1852) 16 L.